Page 75 of The Bear's Heart
For a moment, up against the crowd and separated by the length of the battle arena, the two men paused, chests heaving, their notched swords sagging to the ground.
“Do you yield, Melwas of Dinas Brent?” Cei called out.
As if he would when yielding meant certain death. After a heavy pause, Melwas shook his head in defiance. Then the two men approached one another again. Arthur was now clearly dragging his leg. Melwas couldn’t have missed it.
Before the throne, only yards away from me, they came together once more. Their swords, which must have felt leaden by now, clashed, bringing them face to face, so close that each inhaled the breath of the other, their shields locked. Melwas gasped for air. “I’ll enjoy… your wife,” he grunted in Arthur’s face, only loud enough for those closest– Merlin and me, and perhaps Maia– to hear. His words came out in short staccato bursts. “Like I did…last winter…She’s a slut…in bed…Just what…I like.”
A flash of blind fury flared in Arthur’s eyes. With an enormous effort, he shoved Melwas away, using his shield as leverage, and struck rather too wildly with his sword.
Watching their faces and hearing those words, my heart thudded with primal fear. I could see exactly what Melwas was doing. If he couldn’t beat Arthur by swordsmanship, then he’d do it by goading him into an anger-fueled mistake.
Melwas’s sword slid past Arthur’s, slashing at his torso. The mail shirt deflected the blow. The sword flicked upwards, opening a gash in Arthur’s sword arm just below the elbow. Arthur staggered backward as blood darkened the sleeve of his tunic.
My heart leapt into my throat. I couldn’t swallow it down. My mouth was bone dry as for a moment, time stood still.
Then Melwas leapt in for the kill.
Arthur was fast. He dodged sideways, his shield up, and the blow went wide. The crowd was too close, and a woman fell backward clutching her stomach, blood fountaining. A cry of horror went up from her husband, a howl for revenge from the crowd and the audience seemed to surge forward as one.
Arthur held up his sword arm, blood dripping from his elbow. “Keep back! I promised him trial by combat, and that he’ll have.” His voice was harsh with effort, and his chest heaved.
Cei stepped forward. “Take that woman to be tended to immediately.”
The crowd took a couple of steps back, but a lust for blood lingered in their eyes as they watched Melwas. If, heaven forbid, he should win, I didn’t give a fig for his chances of getting out of Din Cadan alive.
Amhar began to cry again, unhappy with the finger he’d been given, but I waved Maia away with him when she approached me, unable to think of feeding him with my husband fighting for his life. I could think of nothing but Arthur, the fear for him eroding all else.
The two men circled one another once more, Arthur’s right hand now slick with blood. It must have been making his grip on his sword hilt difficult.
They were both getting their breath back, Arthur noticeably more quickly. Warily, they edged around one another, feet shuffling in the dirt again in this deadly dance of death.
Their breath regained, they went at one another once more. Solid hit rained on solid hit in a clash of metal, like a blacksmith’s hammer, ringing out time after time. But Melwas was flagging now, his age taking its toll. Arthur feinted a blow. Melwas went for it, and Arthur struck at Melwas’s legs, slicing him across the back of the thigh. Melwas went down like a felled tree right in front of the throne, blood pouring from the wound and splattering across the dusty, scuffed-up ground, an expression of the utmost surprise on his face. Arthur limped back a step, watching, waiting. Melwas tried to get up, and failed. His leg wouldn’t support him. The tendons must have been cut through.
Relief surged over me. I put a hand to my face to staunch the tremble that had started in my jaw. My teeth chattered together for a moment, then stilled.
“Do you yield?” Arthur asked, panting hard.
Melwas, half-kneeling on his good leg now, flashed him a look brim full of hatred, and shook his head. “Never.” The word came on a gasp, as bright arterial blood pooled on the ground around him. “You’ll have to kill me yourself.” His voice was weak and thready, too low to be heard by any but Merlin and me.
“That won’t be hard,” Arthur snapped back, taking a step toward his fallen opponent. “Prepare yourself for the journey to Hell. There is a special place there for men who kill innocent children.”
He knocked Melwas’s sword easily from his hand. The damaged wooden shield slipped from the fallen man’s hands onto the bloodied earth. His face was paling fast as the blood pumped out of him. He would be dead from loss of blood in a minute or two anyway.
Arthur threw down his own shield and stood over Melwas, looking down on him, his face a mask of anger and contempt. Two-handed, he raised his sword for the killing blow.
Melwas lifted his head with difficulty to glare up at him out of his coal-black eyes. His mouth opened and he spoke, his lips moving almost soundlessly. No one but Arthur could have heard what he said.
Arthur’s eyes widened in shock. His face contorted as he hesitated for a moment. Then his sword swung through the air, biting into Melwas’s neck beneath his helmet strap, slicing through flesh and bone and sinew.
The head went flying. For a second or two, the body, devoid of its head, remained upright on its knees, and then it toppled to the ground, blood oozing from the stump in feeble gouts as his heart beat its final rhythm.
For a long moment no one moved, the crowd mesmerized by the triumph of their king.
In slow motion, Arthur turned anguished eyes on me. Then his gaze slid sideways to the baby in Maia’s arms. He let his sword fall to the ground. With one hand he unfastened his helmet strap and threw it down beside his sword, his hair plastered in damp curls to his head. Then he shrugged himself out of his mail shirt and let that fall beside his helmet and sword, as though with it he was shedding more than just his armor. His shoulders sagged.
A lone figure hurtled out from amongst the crowd. A small creature, bent-backed and frail. Olwyn, howling like an anguished wolf, ran toward her fallen son. She crashed into Arthur, and he staggered backward. Metal flashed, the red of blood blossomed, then Merlin pushed past the throne, throwing himself on top of Olwyn, pinning her right hand to the ground. In it glittered a dagger.
Arthur’s expression held utter surprise. Blood seeped from between the fingers he’d clapped to his chest and the color drained from his cheeks. I leapt to my feet and ran to him.
